Linde PLC Unit Employee Gets $20 Million for Race Harassment (2)

American HomePatient/Lincare subjected a Black customer service representative to race-based harassment and must pay her more than $20 million in damages, a Pennsylvania federal jury ruled.

The Linde PLC subsidiary violated the US’s original civil rights law, 42 U.S.C. §1981, the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania jury said after a two-day trial. The company did so by allowing two co-workers to create an abusive work environment for Patricia Holmes and by failing to promptly end the harassment, the jury said.

It awarded Holmes $500,000 in compensatory damages, according to a verdict form entered Wednesday. The jury ...